Our leadership team is treating the short-term Issues List in our Level 10 Meeting™ as a dumping ground for minor administrative tasks and transactional requests that they could easily resolve with a quick Slack message or a five-minute offline conversation. How do we establish a filter to keep these low-level micro-issues out of our weekly leadership pulse?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your short-term Issues List is clogged with minor administrative tasks, you run out of time to solve the real, systemic issues holding your company back. Your weekly Level 10 Meeting™ is the most expensive ninety minutes of your week. Using it to discuss office supplies or basic schedule coordination is a massive waste of high-value resources.

To clean up your list, implement a strict rule called the twenty-four-hour rule. Before any leader adds an issue to the weekly list, they must attempt to solve it directly with the relevant person offline. If they can resolve it with a quick email, a direct message, or a brief conversation, they must do so.

If they attempt to solve it and hit a roadblock, or if the solution requires cross-departmental agreement, only then does it earn a spot on the weekly Issues List.

When reviewing the list at the start of IDS®, the facilitator should audit new additions. If an issue looks like a minor task, ask the owner, 'did you try to solve this offline first?' If the answer is no, remove it from the list and direct them to handle it after the meeting.

By raising the bar for what qualifies as an issue, you force your team to communicate directly and run highly efficient operations. This keeps your weekly meeting focused on high-impact problem-solving and prepares your leadership team to operate independently.